Temporal properties of spontaneous speech - a syllable-centric perspective
Temporal properties of spontaneous speech - a syllable-centric perspective
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DOI：
10.1016/j.wocn.2003.09.005
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发表时间：
2003-07-01
影响因子：
1.9
通讯作者：
Chang, SY
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Greenberg, S;Carvey, H;Chang, SY
语音信号的时间属性对于理解口头语言至关重要，并且可以为听众以如此明显的努力处理口语的方式提供重大洞察力。这项研究的论点是，语音段的持续性特性差异地反映了音节中包含的信息量，而音节突出性是对语言熵的间接度量。理解口语的能力似乎取决于音节持续时间的广泛分布，范围在50至400毫秒之间（对于美国英语），这反映在声学信号的调制频谱中。调制光谱的上分支（6-20 Hz）反映了无应力的音节，而下部分支（<5 Hz）大多表示压力很重的音节。低通滤波调制频谱以与压力和无压力音节对理解口语的不同贡献一致的方式降低了口语句子的清晰度。该现象的起源是根据自发的美国英语电话对话（总机）中包含的语音片段的持续性属性进行了研究的。关于压力的重音，手动注释了该材料的四十五分钟，以及所检查的口音水平和分段持续时间之间的关系。统计分析表明，在音节和语音段水平上观察到的许多时间变化都可以用两个基本参数来解释：（1）应力含量含量的模式和（2）段在音节内的位置。段通常在压力很大的音节中最长，在没有压力的音节中最短。但是，口音对持续时间的影响随着音节位置的函数而变化。核的持续时间受到应力量化水平重应激的核的影响，平均是其无人应力的两倍，而发作的持续时间也对压力也显着敏感，但程度较小。相比之下，压力对CODA持续时间的影响相对较小。这种持续时间变化的模式表明，声音核吸收了压力重音的许多影响，并有可能设定了解释音节中包含的语音段的寄存器。此外，数据表明，语言熵在音节中并不均匀分布在整个音节中，而核传达了比尾声更多的信息。 （c）2003 Elsevier Ltd.保留所有权利。
Temporal properties of the speech signal are of potentially great importance for understanding spoken language and may provide significant insight into the manner in which listeners process spoken language with so little apparent effort. It is the thesis of this study that durational properties of phonetic segments differentially reflect the amount of information contained within a syllable, and that syllable prominence is an indirect measure of linguistic entropy. The ability to understand spoken language appears to depend on a broad distribution of syllable duration, ranging between 50 and 400 ms (for American English), which is reflected in the modulation spectrum of the acoustic signal. The upper branch of the modulation spectrum (6-20 Hz) reflects unstressed syllables, while the lower branch (< 5 Hz) represents mostly heavily stressed syllables. Low-pass filtering the modulation spectrum reduces the intelligibility of spoken sentences in a manner consistent with the differential contribution of stressed and unstressed syllables to understanding spoken language. The origins of this phenomenon are investigated in terms of the durational properties of phonetic segments contained in a corpus of spontaneous American English telephone dialogues (SWITCHBOARD). Forty-five minutes of this material was manually annotated with respect to stress accent, and the relation between accent level and segmental duration examined. Statistical analysis indicates that much of the temporal variation observed at the syllabic and phonetic-segment levels can be accounted for in terms of two basic parameters: (1) stress-accent pattern and (2) position of the segment within the syllable. Segments are generally longest in heavily stressed syllables and shortest in syllables without stress. However, the magnitude of accent's impact on duration varies as a function of syllable position. Duration of the nucleus is heavily affected by stress-accent level-heavily stressed nuclei are, on average, twice as long as their unstressed counterparts, while the duration of the onset is also significantly sensitive to stress, but to a lesser degree. In contrast, stress has relatively little impact on coda duration. This pattern of durational variation suggests that the vocalic nucleus absorbs much of the impact of stress accent and potentially sets the register for interpreting the phonetic segments contained within the syllable. Moreover, the data imply that linguistic entropy is not uniformly distributed across the syllable-the onset and nucleus convey more information than the coda. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.